Up Canada Creek Without a Paddle
by Doctor Whom 456
Summary: When Daniel contracts an alien pathogen, Sam and Jack have to race him back to Cheyenne Mountain before he succumbs. The catch? They're in Canada, where they have no jurisdiction. They can't use hospitals, ambulances, or emergency helicopters. Even with Teal'c, Hammond, and Frasier guiding them from home, will they be able to make it? Pretty whumpy.


"Look," Daniel said, crouching over an open box. "There's something written here. It- well, it looks like it's Egyptian hieroglyphics at first glance, but it not. It looks more like a picture form of ancient Sumerian cuneiform."  
"Very interesting, Daniel," Jack said, sounding like for all the world he'd rather be somewhere else. "Why don't we take it back through the Stargate with us and you can study it all you want in your lab."  
Teal'c agreed. "Daniel Jackson, I do not believe staying here for long is a good idea. The locals warned us their leaders do not like foreigners, and will return any day now."  
Daniel sighed.  
"Fine," he said, packing it up. "I'll figure out an entire exciting unknown language with untold secrets away from you if you're too impatient-"  
"Daniel," Sam warned. "Let's go."  
She turned and the rest of SG-1 followed.  
"Daniel, dial the gate."

~~~~~~~~~

"You're all good," Dr Janet Frasier said, putting away the bright light she had just been shining in Jack's eye.  
"Are we clear to leave the country?" Jack asked.  
"I-I guess," she replied. "Why? Where are you going?"  
"Jack, Sam, and I are going to Canada for a week for an astronomy convention. Teal'c didn't want to go with," Daniel said.  
"Correct. I have no interest in the stars of this section of the galaxy."  
"I don't either," said Jack.  
Sam smiled at him.  
"Well," Janet said, "I don't see why you shouldn't be able to go. Just be careful. Don't spill any government secrets, and don't try poutine."  
"Poutine?" Jack looked confused.  
"It's gravy on french fries," Sam said.  
"What's not to like about that?" Jack said, grinning.  
"Guys," Daniel said. "The flight leaves in 3 hours. We'd better go."

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The flight was uneventful. They made it to Winnipeg without trouble, and except for a patch of turbulence above North Dakota, it was actually boring. The airport was crowded, but the again, when isn't an airport crowded?  
"Our hotel is the Winnipeg Modern. It's just 15 minutes from here," Sam said, looking at the oversized map the airport provided.  
"Right," Daniel said, "Did we get a rental or are we walking?"  
"We don't have a rental," Sam replied.  
"Oh no," Jack said, "We are not walking. Taxi!"  
"That's someone's yellow car," Daniel said. "Canadian taxis are blue and orange."  
"I don't see any of those."  
"Guess we're walking then!"

~~~~~~~~

It took an hour to get there. Turns out 15 minutes meant 'by car'. They checked into their respective rooms. By 'respective' I mean Jack and Sam went in one room and Daniel went in another. Their travel budget didn't allow for people to not share rooms, so it was decided by Daniel refusing to room with Jack after he found Jack cheating at poker with him.  
"I'm still mad at you for that, you know," Daniel said.  
"Oh come on," Jack said. "I had cheese crisps on the line! I'm not gonna give those up."  
"Alright," Sam interjected loudly. "It's late. We should go to bed. See you at 7?"  
"Sure," Daniel said, and retreated.

~~~~~~~

Less than an hour later, a knock came on Jack and Sam's hotel room door. It wasn't loud, but very urgent sounding.  
Jack opened the door. Daniel stood there, blood spilling out from between his fingers as he coughed violently.  
"Jack," he said weakly, and collapsed in the doorframe.  
"Daniel!" Jack said. "Are you okay? Did you get stabbed or something?" His eyes scanned his archeologist's body. No stab wounds anywhere to be seen. Jack's stomach dropped as he remembered the box Daniel had found. Daniel had been the one to open the box, and presumably breathe in the contents. He realized with a horrible feeling that the box was probably booby trapped. _Daniel always loved telling me of the precautions ancient Egyptians put in their pyramids to prevent grave robbers. Is it really so hard to believe that this civilisation, so similar to the Egyptians, has discovered biological warfare?  
_ Sam stepped out of the hotel bathroom, her hair wrapped in a towel.  
"Jack? What's-" She glanced downward. She knelt over Daniel as he lay curled up. "We need to get him to a hospital."  
"We can't go to one," Jack said, grabbing his car keys and then dropping them again as he remembered his car was at the Colorado Springs airport. "We're in Canada. No jurisdiction. We can't cover up the Stargate if that's why he's sick. No, we've got to get back in the states."  
"But- we're in Winnipeg! We're over 375 miles from the border!"  
Jack looked at the prone, coughing body of his friend.  
"He'll make it," he said. "He'll make it." But deep down inside, Jack O'Neill wasn't sure.  
"Is he conscious?" he asked.  
"You know, you could ask me," Daniel replied weakly from the floor. He then convulsed in another coughing fit.  
His chest was heaving, and his voice was hoarse when he talked. It didn't take long for Jack to realize there was no way Daniel could walk to the parking lot. But of course, he couldn't just carry him. Jack figured he could probably do it, weight-wise- that man was the size of a paper clip- but the 4-star hotel would object to someone who appeared to be coughing up blood in their nice carpeted hallways, and would take him to the hospital.  
Jack explained this to Sam.  
"I know," she replied. "My only plan involves a pulley system and hoping that the bed," she said, pushing one of the queen beds toward the wall, "is heavier than it actually is. I hope you've got something else."  
So Jack told her his plan.

~~~~~~~~

"No," Sam said. "We're not doing that. That sounds like the plot of a James Bond movie!"  
"We don't really have any other choice," Jack reminded her.  
Sam glanced at her horizontal teammate. "What do you think?"  
"There's a lot that could go wrong, but I can't really think of a better plan right now," Daniel said.  
Sam sighed. "Fine. Just... don't hurt them. Please. That's not what we do."  
Jack nodded. "Of course."  
Sam picked up the hotel phone. "Room service?" she asked. "Yeah, I'd like a large cheese pizza please. And extra napkins. No, no drinks. Cash. Thanks!" She looked at Daniel. "We'd better move you out of the way for now."  
"How about the bed?" Daniel suggested. "I can lie down and not look like a murder victim if I face away."  
"Good idea," Jack said. Sam and Jack lifted him up. _Murder victim_ , Jack thought, a chill running down his spine. _Don't say it, don't think it, and for god's sake Daniel don't let it happen.  
_ "What on earth do you think happened?" Sam said.  
"I don't think it was on earth," Daniel said. "I think-" he paused to cough and Sam couldn't help but recoil from the bright red liquid dripping from his mouth "- I think it's a trap to stop people from taking it."  
"I knew it!" Jack said.  
"Can you explain, then?" Daniel replied. "It really hurts to talk right now."  
"Of course," Jack answered. He couldn't keep the concern out of his voice. "Sam, the guys who made the box probably put a disease inside."  
"That makes sense," she said. "All it would take is a basic understanding of germ theory and a plague victim."  
"Yeah," Jack said.  
There came a knock from the door. "Room service!"  
"That was quick," Jack said dryly.  
"Come in! Sam said. Jack positioned himself by the door with the phone. The door opened and Jack brought the phone down on the poor waiter's head. He went down.  
"That's gotta hurt," Sam said.  
"Alright, let's do this," Jack said, putting the phone on the ground. Noticing Sam's dismayed expression, he said "He'll be fine. No blood. Unlike Daniel. Come on. Stick to the plan."  
She sighed. "Alright. It's a man about your height, so you'll take the clothes. I'll stay in the bottom with Daniel." She cleared off the bottom shelf of the food cart holding their food as Jack dragged the waiter- Henry, his name tag said- to the bathroom to change into his clothes.

~~~~~~~~~

It took less than ten minutes for Jack to both put Daniel and Sam in the food cart and cover them again, and to realise Henry was a bit thicker than he was. He was taking his belt from his normal clothes when Sam called out they were ready and to hurry.  
Jack dropped the belt and grabbed the cart. The pizza was still on top under the fancy metal cover, so he had to be a bit careful. The napkins were beneath, where Sam was trying to clean up Daniel's mouth in vain.  
"Here we go," Jack said, and began to push the cart out of the room.  
He got about halfway to the elevator before running into the janitor.  
"Henry?" The elderly Asian woman seemed very confused. "Henry, did you lose weight and dye your hair?"  
Jack scrambled for words.  
"Uh, yeah. New year, new me, ya know?"  
"Oh, of course," she replied. "My grandson did that recently. He dyed his hair bright red. Bright red! He says he-" She was cut off by a loud cough coming from under Jack's food cart. Jack desperately tried to think of anything but the color red that had suddenly become too prominent in his life.  
"What was that?" the janitor asked.  
"Um, it was creaking. Gotta go." Jack grabbed the cart and pushed it toward the elevator with alacrity.  
"Bye, Henry!" she called after him.  
Jack made it to the first floor without further incident.  
SG-1 had really lucked out with the hotel's layout. Rooms ran along a hallway with a door to the parking lot at the end, so Jack could pretend to be delivering to a room at the end of the hall and simply keep going. And that's exactly what he did.  
The parking lot was another puzzle. The team couldn't exactly call a taxi.  
Sam crawled out from under the cart.  
"We need to find a car fast," she said. She lowered her voice. "He's getting worse, sir. He won't make it through the night if he doesn't get to a hospital. We might just want to cut our losses and take him to the hospital."  
Jack looked at the ground. "I'm going to call Hammond. It's his responsibility if Canada finds out but we might have no choice."  
"I'll look for a car while you do that." Sam darted off with a certain urgency Jack didn't think he'd ever seen. He didn't dare look under the cart. Daniel wasn't responding anymore, and that couldn't be good.  
He typed in some numbers on his phone.  
"Hammond," a familiar voice on the other end said.  
"Sir, it's Colonel O'Neill," Jack said, trying to keep his voice level.  
"Jack?" Hammond said. "Why are you calling me on my home phone at midnight! Why do you even have my home phone?"  
"Daniel's sick."  
All trivialities vanished from Hammond's end of the phone.  
"How sick?" He asked. "You're not calling me over a cold."  
"No," Jack said. "Call Doctor Frasier right now sick."  
"Well for god's sake Jack, take him to a hospital!"  
"That's the problem, General. We all think he caught it from the Stargate."  
General Hammond audibly sighed on the other end. "I can't make the decision for you, Jack. If you take him to a hospital and it is related to the Stargate program, it could end in hostilities between the US and Canada. Not to mention that the existence of extraterrestrials could have unimaginable consequences. But I won't choose between prioritising national security or the life a good friend."  
"Sir," Sam called from across the parking lot. "I've got a car. Still got the keys in it. Are we dashing him to the border or are we going to a hospital?"  
Jack hesitated. "We're running," he said. "How fast is this car?"  
"Uh, pretty fast," she said, gesturing to it. "It's a 2015 Dodge Hellcat, which I think is the fastest sedan."  
"Well, that's a stroke of luck," Jack said, grabbing the cart and sprinting in between the cars. It wasn't far, but it was significantly harder to run with a dead load on a cart. _Don't use dead load,_ Jack reminded himself. _He's alive, and he's going to stay alive forever_. Jack didn't want to consider any other, more likely possibilities.  
Jack repeated his statement to the phone. "We're running."

~~~~~~~

Jack dreaded what he knew would come next. Putting Daniel in the car. It only had one door on each side, which made it significantly more difficult to manoeuvre him in. Sam climbed into the backseat to help. Jack pulled back the white -well, actually pink- curtain of the food cart. He visibly recoiled at the sight. Daniel was paler than Jack had thought possible. His hair was drenched with sweat and his lips and left cheek were covered in his blood as he laid curled up in the fetal position. "Right," Jack murmured, "let's get you help." As he reached into the cart to pick the archeologist up, his hands touched something wet and Jack realised to his horror that most of the floor of the cart was in a pool of Daniel's blood. He swallowed hard, and lifted Daniel up. He turned to the car and handed him to Sam, who also didn't appear thrilled by Daniel's worsening state. She lay him on the backseat. Jack watched as she tried strap him in, but there was no middle seat in the back to act as a longer seatbelt. "Just buckle yourself in and hold him," Jack said, getting in himself. "And hold him good, ok? I'm gonna be driving a bit over the speed limit."  
"How much?" Sam asked.  
"How fast can this car go?"  
"Well, it's the fastest sedan there is, so I think upwards of 200 miles per hour."  
"So it'll take about 2 hours to get to the border." Jack gripped the wheel pensively.  
Sam looked astonished. "Daniel doesn't have a seat belt! You're not going to drive at 200 miles an hour without him having a seatbelt. If you crash, you could kill him!"  
Jack didn't look at her and started the car. "Sam, he'll die if we don't get to the border soon. And if we crash at 200 miles an hour? We're all dead, seatbelt or not." And with that reassuring line, he pulled the car out of the parking lot and surged forward.

~~~~~~~~~

It didn't take long to find the highway. With the way Jack was speeding, it was a miracle nobody happened to be turning a corner whenever Jack blew through another stop sign. Once on the highway, though, he didn't have to worry about that anymore. Jack could focus his worry on the archaeologist lying in the backseat.  
"You ok?" Jack asked, glancing back at his passengers.  
"For God's sake, look at the road!" Sam cried.  
Jack turned back around and noticed not a second too soon that the car was drifting into oncoming traffic at over 200 miles an hour. He yanked the steering wheel back on track. Sam lurched forward as she tried to keep Daniel from flying forward.  
"I still don't think it was a good idea to do this without a seatbelt for him, sir," she said. "To answer your question, I'm fine."  
"How's Daniel?" Jack asked, staying forward this time.  
"He's- oh, your stunt woke him up." She cradled his head like he was a small child. "How are you feeling, Daniel?" she said, trying to keep the concern out of her voice.  
Daniel gave a pained whimper and coughed. Sam just looked at him pityingly.

~~~~~~~

They were an hour into the drive. Somewhere behind them a siren turned on.  
"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Jack said. "I'm trying to save my friend and national security and a goddamn Mountie comes after me."  
"They're not a Mountie, sir," Sam said quietly. "They're in a car, not a horse. They're just a normal Canadian cop."  
"Doesn't change the fact the police are after me." Jack watched Daniel's head loll in the rearview mirror. "If I don't stop, they'll put down spike lines or something. We'll be incapacitated, maybe even flip over."  
Sam looked out the window. "If you do, there's a good chance they'll find Daniel."  
"We can't risk getting flipped. Make sure they don't find him." Jack began to slow down.  
Sam scrambled to cover Daniel. To her aid was a heavy emergency blanket that just so happened to be a bright shade of crimson. Sam lay the blanket over his body and rolled him off the seat and her lap and pushed him under the seat.  
The officer pulled up behind them and got out. Jack reached for his wallet and realised to his dismay he had left his wallet at the hotel room.  
"License and proof of insurance?" the cop asked.  
"Right, um, I left my wallet at home, officer. I do know my license number." He reached over to the glove box. "I have the proof of insurance right in here. May I?" The officer nodded, and Jack reached in and hoped against hope that's where the original owner kept the insurance papers.  
He pulled out a sheet of paper. "Here ya go," he said.  
The police officer looked at it. "Alright. Can I have your license number?"  
Jack told him it.  
The officer typed it into his tablet then frowned. "Says here you're in the American military."  
"Yes I am," Jack responded.  
"My father was," the cop replied, staring off into the distance sadly. "He was killed in Iraq."  
"I'm sorry for your loss," Jack said.  
"I think I can look past your driving without a license."  
Jack smiled and nodded.  
The officer wasn't done yet. "However, sir, do you know why I pulled you over today?"  
Jack feigned ignorance.  
"Did you know you were driving at about 320 kilometres per hour?"  
"How fast is that in regular measurements?"  
"Oh, right, you're American. Well-" he said, typing something on his tablet, "-it's around 200 miles an hour."  
Jack made some surprised noises. "Really?" he said, trying to pretend he hadn't been a third of the way to breaking the sound barrier.  
"Honestly, I'm impressed," the cop said. "I do have to ticket you. You should be glad it's just that. I could have your license revoked or you incarcerated or even have you deported for driving this fast. Unless, of course, you have an actual reason for going at speeds of this calibre, like your wife back there in labor or otherwise needs a hospital."  
Jack hesitated. "Can you let me off with a warning? I'm going to, uh, uh, my own wedding. I was just picking up some supplies her father wanted and we're already late."  
The cop looked sympathetic. "Alright sir. But only because I'm awed by how fast you were going. Don't do it again."  
Jack nodded. The cop hadn't noticed the lump under the backseat, and thank god for that.  
If he had... Jack didn't want to consider that. The cop left.  
Half an hour past. Jack was back up driving at breakneck speeds, and his phone rang.  
"Colonel O'Neill."  
"Jack, I've got Teal'c and Dr. Frasier on speakerphone with me." General Hammond sounded like he hadn't slept all night. And, Jack supposed, he hadn't- it was 1:30 AM and gathering Teal'c and Janet can't have been easy. They would need to find a babysitter for Cassie. They would need to drive to the mountain. All in all, Jack surmised, it would have taken around an hit and an half to reconvene. Hammond must have called them as soon as he got off the phone with me, Jack realized. He was snapped out of his thoughts by Dr. Frasier.  
"Can you describe his condition? I need to figure out what Earth pathogen this most likely resembles so I can form a treatment plan."  
"Of course," Jack said. He glanced back to look at Daniel and noticed his condition had somehow gotten even worse. "Sam, can you answer? I've got to drive."  
Sam stroked Daniel's hair. "He's not good," she said in the direction of the phone. "He's coughing up blood. A lot of blood. He's very pale."  
"Exsanguination might become a problem," Frasier said matter-of-factly but the concern in her voice couldn't be disguised.  
"What's egg sandwich nation?" Jack asked, knowing darn well that wasn't what the doctor had said, but he was too tired and tense to care.  
Sam answered. "Exsanguination is bleeding out."  
Jack's stomach turned. He thought of Daniel's bloodless, lifeless body lying on the backseat. He pushed the thought from his mind as quick as he could, but the image persisted. He swallowed hard.  
"Does he have a fever?" Frasier asked.  
Sam put her hand on his forehead.  
"Yes," she said. "A high one."  
"What can they do?" Teal'c asked Dr Frasier.  
"Well, not much. You could stop at a convenience store, but you can't really wait at all. Getting Daniel across the border is the big problem," Janet replied.  
General Hammond cleared his throat. "I've arranged for an emergency helicopter straight to Cheyenne Mountain for as soon as you cross the border."  
"Can't you just send it 20 miles further and take him now?" Jack said, glancing in the rear view mirror at the prone body of his friend and Sam cradling the young man in her arms. The backseat of the once-exquisite car was covered in blood. And the coughing. The coughing was unbearable. It seemed every few minutes another cough would force its way out of Daniel's chest. As far as Jack was concerned, coughing was a good thing. _Can't cough if you're dead_ , he thought macabrely. No, the coughing wasn't what was scaring him. He had gotten used to the coughing after a while. What scared him, really scared him, was how every cough seemed weaker than the last.  
Jack turned his attention back to the road. Hammond was saying something how he couldn't invade another country's airspace. He murmured some words of acknowledgment and kept driving at his insane speeds.  
Dr Frasier interrupted. "I've looked at the box Daniel brought back from P51-682. Samples contained a bacteria quite similar to Yersinia pestis, more commonly known as plague."  
"He has plague?!" Sam cried.  
"Not quite. It's very similar, but not quite. I have antibiotics to treat it, and I have my best analysts working on developing a case-specific treatment based on the pathogens from the box. Oh, and you needn't worry- it's not contagious from person to person."  
"But doesn't plague cause swellings or something?" Sam said, stroking Daniel's face.  
"Only in the case of bubonic plague. This is based off of pneumonic plague. Same disease, just affecting the lungs instead of lymph nodes. It causes coughing up blood, which I hear is affecting Daniel severely."  
Sam nodded. "It is. He-"  
Jack cut her off. "We're coming up on the border. How do we get through?"  
Sam looked at him. "They'll discover Daniel if we try to hide him."  
"Well, we sure as hell can't let them see him!" Jack said, slamming his hands in the steering wheel.  
"You could try to not stop." Teal'c sounded very matter-of-fact as he posed the statement.  
"What?" Jack said, incredulous.  
"It is 2 o'clock in the morning at a little-used border crossing. Drive through it without stopping."  
"They have a lever bar blocking our way," Sam said.  
"Teal'c is right," Hammond said. "You can't let the Canadians see Daniel. You're going fast enough to plow through it. Normally if someone goes past border control, the officers will notify American border security. We can call them off."  
Jack turned and looked at Daniel. His skin was still whiter than the snow falling softly around the car, gathering in small drifts on the dead grass. Dead, just like- no. Like nothing. Nothing is dead, nothing is dying, and especially Daniel isn't. No.  
Jack accelerated.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He broke through the border without really being there. His mind was a million miles away. Jack was almost in a stupor as he gripped under Daniel's arms to drag him from the car with Sam's help. He stayed in the stupor the whole way back in the emergency helicopter. He stayed that way as Janet wheeled Daniel into an operating room on a gurney. He stayed that way as he waited for the verdict on Daniel's chances to come forth. He didn't wake from it even when Dr Frasier told him it looked good, that he and Sam had done everything right and it seemed Daniel would make it. The only thing that awakened Jack from his daze, the only thing that could, really, was Daniel grabbing his hand and squeezing it, as if to say, thank you. He was still unconscious, but he still seemed more lucid. The color had returned to his cheeks, and the cough had stopped entirely. He looked- well, he looked more alive. Jack didn't try to stop the tears. Well, okay, he did at first, when the doctor and Sam and Teal'c and Hammond were checking in. But when Jack was alone with just Daniel's unconscious body, he cried. Tears of sorrow at what Daniel had to go through. Tears of joy that he had lived. And tears of who-knows-what and raw emotion. And through the tears, Jack thought he could just make out a small movement. Daniel smiled.


End file.
